Tag: Agile Abuse

Neha – We are always missing acceptance criteria and functional details in a story. It is really tough to commit a story with little or no clarity.

Bob – The Agile lets you to evolve the requirements as you move. This is perfectly alright. I am within the boundary. I will write acceptance criteria when I get the time.

Peter- The requirements can evolve and that’s advantage for a customer while stories cannot keep evolving during the sprint. You have an opportunity to refine the acceptance criteria. If the functional requirements are not clear or acceptance criteria cannot be determined during planning/grooming, the story shouldn’t be committed. It should be moved for a later sprint.

Bob – Can I write the acceptance criteria and later change it altogether during sprint as we progress?

Peter – No for sure. The change in a story once committed is a “scope creep”. You must move that to next sprint of post re-estimation, you might have to remove some other stories out of a sprint. Ideally, you are not allowed to change anything during a sprint. Adding more details to acceptance criteria to to make it more clear as you move should be fine, though.

Bob – Fair! I will take out the stories where I don’t have clarity.

Challenge – Writing one liner description for a story should be fine and we will keep looking at it while working in progress during the sprint.

Paula – Amy, you mentioned that Agile is supposed to be faster. Why don’t you speed up the work with the same team? Sprint velocity is supposed to be must faster sprint after sprint and the speed of work should constantly increase.

Amy – Too much of speed can affect the quality of work. Agile promotes sustainable development. In a long run, the overall benefit with respect to quantity or quality is going to be more in most circumstances while the sprint can run with a pace and all you can expect is little improvement sprint after sprint.

Amy – The team prefers to talk and sort out open items. Although there is some unwanted discussions as well but that is just to keep morale up. It is truly helping us to sort out open items every day.

Ron – There is something wrong here. Are the questions being asked or clarification expected common to all?

Amy – Not really. Once in a while, it is general but typically it’s between two people. It helps everyone to get the perspective.

Ron – You really need to take those discussions offline. The standup is supposed to end in less than 10 minutes (Worst case 15 minutes) for 10 member team. You can do planning or grooming once or twice a week but that must have to be separate meeting and not a standup.